


The Forgotten Floor

by ScifiRice



Category: The Forgotten Floor
Genre: Monster People, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24932197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScifiRice/pseuds/ScifiRice
Summary: a short story i wrote for a school assignment that is based on a dream. i might make more of this





	The Forgotten Floor

Thankfully the security guard pays me no mind, I walk through the lobby trying my hardest in drawing no attention to myself. I should be able to use this place for a few days before the folk working here notice me waking in here so often. I head straight for the elevator. I'm holding onto my messenger bag with two of my four hands, making sure its contents don’t rattle around and make noise. I press the button to call for the elevator with one of my free hands. I wait patiently for the elevator to descend down while looking all around me for anyone suspicious. The door opens, a large creature in a suit with a briefcase walks out, and only one of his many eyestalks even looks in my direction. He walks away and will likely forget I even existed in the span of a minute. I quickly enter the elevator and press the button to shut the door, ensuring no one else enters. Especially the ones who are trying to get to where I’m going.

I quickly reach into my bag with a free arm while using the other three to hold it steady. I pull out a small metallic button, nearly identical to the ones on the panel for the elevator. I place it on the panel and it snaps on thanks to the magnet on the underside. I press the newly attached button and the elevator begins to go down, despite entering this on the ground floor. I take off the button and put it back in my bag. The floor indicator reads “¿” after the short descent. The door opens and I press a button to send the elevator to the 10th floor before quickly getting out. 

“Took ya long enough Kaid.” My friend Trisk said as she stands up from the floor.  
“Sorry. But I saw some of them trying to spy on me at the building I’ve been using. I managed to get away before being spotted and I found a new place with an elevator I can use.” I say.  
“Maybe you’d be less conspicuous if you weren’t so lanky and pale.” She said.  
“It’s not my fault I was born this way. And you’re no better, how would anyone know you’re not hiding a gun under all those rags?” I say while looking at the cloth covering every inch of her, save for a slit to show her two glowing eyes.  
“A fair point. But lets not get into this right now. Let’s get to work.” She said.

This place, we call it “The Forgotten Floor” a strange space accessible from any elevator as long as you know which button to push. I don’t know if the building we end up in every time has an outside, but we’ve never really bothered to look. We pass doors leading to things that look like lecture halls but designed so oddly. Like with the place the professor would stand being elevated 15 feet above where everyone would sit. This place was full of rooms similar to that. All clearly with a purpose but designed in such a way that no sane person would use it. The air is still, yet it is neither warm nor cold. There isn’t a speck of dust anywhere, and no sound but the gentle buzz of the lights overhead. Just long stretches of halls, nonsense rooms, and maroon carpet.

After a short walk we make it to our destination. A room completely featureless save for a sliding glass door on one wall. On the other side is an expansive desert with a bright sky. The light shining through the glass to illuminate the otherwise dim room. Trisk looks at me with her yellow eyes.

“You got the stuff right?” she said.  
“I do. Even brought something for ourselves if those jerks try to get in the way again.” I say.  
“If you had a mouth I’d kiss you just for that.” she said, I'm unable to read her body language at all to know if she was joking or genuine.  
“Hey, I can have a mouth if I need to. So don’t tease me like that.” I say.  
“Well I’ll let you know if you should bother making one. Let’s go.” She said before walking out into the sand. 

The feeling of entering this place is always exhilarating. It should be hot as hell, but it’s not any different from how it felt on the walk to this place. I take a deep breath and feel lighter just from the air here. I stretch all six of my limbs as Trisk also stretches whatever she has for a body under all of that. It will take a long time for this place to regain all of its power. But with every bit of it we cultivate, we get a little bit of it too. And it is amazing. We take off in a sprint towards a structure in the distance, travelling dozens of feet in a single step. The power of this place is ours. And we won’t let those power-hungry assholes get what they want out of this place no matter what.

We arrive at a pyramid in no time at all, only the top half of it is gone. The pieces scattered around but in large geometric chunks half buried in the sand. Like one of those 3D puzzle things you need to try and form into a solid shape. We scale up the side and jump down into the exposed interior. 

The inside is barren of anything resembling something that should belong in a pyramid. Instead there are metal tables and chairs and old electronic equipment that looks like it hasn’t been touched in ages. We are far from the first ones to be here. I find a tape recorder, I press play and all I hear is someone trying to mimic stock sound effects with their voice. Why does this place attract the weirdest people? Trisk and I are no exception from this rule but still.

“You find anything?” I ask.  
“Nothing. Looks like anything valuable was taken long ago.” Trisk said as she looks around.  
“Then there’s nothing we need to hide from them. Let’s get this thing ready.” I say as I leap out in a single jump.

Trisk joins me on the sand outside. I walk over to one of the large broken pieces and run my hand along the impossibly smooth surface until I feel a series of grooves. A strange symbol is carved into the stone. I trace it with my finger and it begins to glow. The piece floats up as sand pours off of it. The piece flies over to the pyramid and sets itself right on top of the exposed part. Trisk and I repeat this process with all the other remaining pieces. Soon the pyramid is complete.

The top of the pyramid begins to glow as a blue beam of light shoots down from the sky and into the tip with a thunderous bang. I feel myself become slightly stronger, and I know Trisk is feeling the same thing. This desert is expansive. It will take a while before we can restore all of the structures in this place and this power is able to extend to us when we’re in the normal world. 

Trisk taps my shoulder and points towards something in the distance. A car speeding over the sand. They no doubt noticed the pyramid reforming. I groan in annoyance as I reach a hand into my bag preemptively while it approaches.

A group of armored soldier-looking fellows jump out brandishing various guns. These jerks work for some group trying to obtain the same power we are trying to get. Except we’re the only ones who are getting anywhere with our plan. They haven’t been able to restore anything in this place yet. A three legged cockroach-looking guy demands to know how we reformed the pyramid. 

“Why should I tell you? We were here first. Go find your own weird desert pyramid.” I said.  
“This place and all it contains is under our control! Surrender what you know about this place!” a fish-person with spider legs asks.  
“Maybe if your boss wants to know so badly. They could come ask in person. We’ve been doing this for so goddamn long and I still have no idea who you work for.” Trisk said.  
“Surrender or we will have to use lethal force!” the cockroach guy said.  
“I’ll die before I let you shits have this place, this doesn’t belong to you!” Trisk said just before a bullet goes through her head.  
“Good job you shot an unarmed lady. Your training has led you do perform an action equivalent to closing a pop-up window on a shady website. But just like a pop-up. It will be back very soon.” I said while clapping sarcastically with two of my free hands.  
“Surrender or we will shoot!” The soldier said once more.  
“This isn’t going to work for much longer you know.” I say before I get shot as well.

First everything goes black, then it happens in reverse. I see a sped up reverse-sequence of everything I had done that day. It all is over in about five minutes. Then everything goes black once more.  
I wake up in my home, once again thankful for the power that place has given us. It’s the same day it was when I left for that place. I am alive and my messenger bag is still slung around my shoulder with everything in it, it’s even radiating some leftover heat from the desert. Being able to die in that place with little consequence has been incredibly useful. I get out of my bed and get a text message from Trisk. She asks if the surprise I had for them worked. I look in my bag, it’s gone. By now the soldiers will have noticed our bodies vanish along with everything we had on us. Except for one thing. A cleverly disguised tracking device. They will probably bring it back to their base, let’s see how they like being harassed.

We can only restart this day so many times before the injuries that killed us begin to linger. So we have to get this done now. I head over to the building I found this morning, repeated what I had done almost exactly to get in the elevator. I arrive at the Forgotten floor and see Trisk waiting for me. We make our way into the desert once more. I look at a small device I had made sure to pack, the tracking device I left behind is still transmitting its location. We race off into the distance to find it.

After running the farthest into the desert as we have ever had before. We peek over the top of a dune to see a strange sight. More soldier monsters, including the ones who shot us earlier. But there is another kind of thing down there. They all look the same, two arms and two legs, nothing else. Judging from their clothes, they are also soldiers of some kind. They seem to be conversing with each other. Thanks to the heightened senses this place grants us, we can listen if we concentrate.

“And you have no idea how they are doing this?” the simple creature said.  
“They keep showing up here no matter how many times we kill them. We know they exist in our world, but they are able to harness the power of this place. The only way we can get rid of them is to find them in the real world.” The cockroach soldier said.  
“Well they know how to activate the structures in this place. We need to know what they know. Only then could we gain this power ourselves.” The simple soldier said.  
“Our leaders agreed to this partnership because both of our worlds would benefit from access to this power. The creation of a new enhanced species for both our kinds that dominate the lesser beings. Those two are testament to the power this can bestow upon the members of our new orders. So long as you keep your end of the bargain, we can both end up with their power.” The cockroach soldier said.  
“Wow, what assholes.” I said.  
“Yeah, they’re so obsessed with seeming superior they go to these lengths to become better than them?” Trisk said.  
“I mean, we were doing it for fun until these jerks arrived. Now we have to do it so they can’t.” I said.  
“So how do you want to handle this?” Trisk said.  
“I see something that gives me an idea. Wait here.” I said.

I leap down the side of the dune, eyeing one of the simple beings looking at a familiar trinket in their hand. I sprint straight towards them, the soldiers barely having time to react when they notice me. With two of my hands I grab the thing out of their hands and shove him aside. I run straight ahead and turn around as the soldiers begin shooting at me. I run past Trisk and she follows. With our speed, we are miles away in minutes. We stop by the side of another broken structure Trisk asks me what I stole. I hold my hand out and open it. Another button for the elevator. She looks at it wide eyed and then at me.

“This might be a three-monster job. I know someone who would want to join us.” I said.


End file.
